


pink soft hands, yellow rippling light

by nisakomi



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Sailor Moon Fusion, M/M, Secret Identity, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 20:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14818208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisakomi/pseuds/nisakomi
Summary: The truth is, Sailor Moon Junhui only got into the whole "fighting evil by moonlight" business because he really likes cats.





	pink soft hands, yellow rippling light

**Author's Note:**

> this fic takes inspiration from sailor moon, but develops its own original lore/backstory. thus, familiarity with the universe is not necessary for an understanding of this story.

 

 

Junhui wakes up with an ass in his face.

It’s far less pleasant than you’d think. The situation only worsens when he grimaces, wrinkling the muscles of his nose against the hairy disturbance. Now, not only are there nine pounds of cat weighing down against his forehead, but the distinct sharpness of claws sinks into the skin under his chin.

Junhui squirms against the ticklish feeling of fur against his lips and turns his head to the side. “Kwannie! Urrrgh,” He groans out, eyes squeezed shut against the onslaught of sunlight unhindered by the thin fabric curtains covering the windows.

“Serves you right,” Minghao says from Junhui’s doorway. Junhui doesn’t think it’s fair that his cat and his roommate team up against him like this, but it’s hard to clearly articulate his point when he’s still half asleep and said cat is sitting on his head. “Wake up. I’m headed to class now. You’d better get up now if you want to shower and still make it in time for yours.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Junhui grumbles. Kwannie’s found a pillow beside Junhui’s head for a more comfortable perch, but he has no qualms about lashing out at Junhui with his tail and it makes Junhui kind of want to sneeze.

Minghao makes a sound from the front hall that’s a bit hard to comprehend. Nevertheless, Junhui is sure it accompanies an eyeroll without having to see his roommate. “You were the one who wanted me to wake you up. I’ll see you after I’m done my shift I guess. Don’t wait up if you’re making dinner.” Minghao’s final “Bye!” trails off before the door clicks shut behind him, leaving Junhui and his cat to their shared apartment.

“You two planned that, didn’t you?” Junhui says to his cat, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “As soon as I asked him to make sure I woke up on time…” He trails off, peering at Kwannie suspiciously. “You’ve just been waiting to do that, huh?”

Against Junhui’s inquisition, Kwannie simply stares back, eyes wide and as pretty as always.

The responding pout on Junhui’s face lasts only a moment before he’s flinging off the covers and sliding out of bed. Since he’s awake now, the sun becomes a welcome presence, and he stretches in its warmth, yawning widely once. It’s not waking up that he minds, only the manner in which it was done. Plus – and he glances at his phone to check, yup – he’d set an alarm and there were still four minutes left before he had to wake up.

He grouses because of it, but the rest of the morning goes smoothly enough that Junhui’s in high spirits when he locks the door behind him.

He hums to himself all the way down the stairs and then for the first five minutes or so of his walk to campus. And then he feels the first raindrop.

“Aw, come on! It was sunny half an hour ago,” he complains, covering his head with one arm for lack of an umbrella. “This is shaping up to be one of the worst mornings ever.”

“You should have checked the weather before you left.”

Kwannie leaps up from where he was trailing behind Junhui to jump inside Junhui’s half-zipped jacket. Junhui’s left arm moves instinctively to cradle his cat.

Oh, the voice who spoke to Junhui? It was Kwannie’s, obviously!

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

Right, Junhui’s companion is a talking cat. It would be difficult to say that he _owns_ a cat, per se, not least because it’s often weird when humans talk about ownership of their pets. But if anything, it’s more like Kwannie owns him.

Other than the talking cat situation, however, Junhui’s life is pretty normal. Kind of. With exceptions. He does do normal twenty-year-old things! For example, he likes to drink milk tea, tends to play games instead of studying, and eats junk food by the family-sized bag.

Junhui also fails tests.

“I thought it was pretty easy, to be honest, even though I thought I’d forgotten all of high school chemistry before this,” Xiaoxiao is saying to Jieqiong on Junhui’s right, while Junhui tries very hard not to think about his 45%. She’d gotten an 80, Jieqiong a 90. He was running for worst mark of their group, and possibly of the entire class. The thing is, he hadn’t let Kwannie see his quiz mark before stuffing it away, but he wouldn’t put it past his cat to be able to read his mind and figure out his grade anyway. Judging by the claws digging into his thigh, Junhui is probably right about the telepathy skills.

“Hey Hansollie,” Junhui whispers, nudging Hansol with his left knee. “How’d you do?”

“95. Think I could have gotten perfect if I remembered the date and studied.” Hansol shrugs, and thankfully doesn’t ask Junhui about his results.

Junhui chokes on his own saliva. He’d forgotten that Hansol was a bit of an Albert Einstein fanboy, but now that he remembers, the grade makes sense.

In retrospect, Junhui doesn’t know what he was thinking, signing up to take an introductory class in astronomy and astrophysics when he was already in junior year. He needed at least science-y kind of course for his degree, and astronomy just seemed interesting, to learn about the stars and planets and the like. But he wasn’t quite into reading books about the subject as Hansol was and he definitely hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that he never took advanced level science in high school. Besides which, it may have been months since Xiaoxiao last took chemistry but it had been years since Junhui had been in high school in the first place. And now, things were as they were, he was taking a first year level course and doing worse than the freshmen.

Kwannie would likely blame it on his failure to study rather than the lack of background but then, Kwannie blamed Junhui for everything really.

“This is really the worst day ever,” Junhui mutters under his breath, leaning back in his seat in the lecture hall, and feels Kwannie digging his paws into his thigh.

“Did you not do very well, hyung? It’s only the first quiz. The exams are worth more and you can make it up with the other evaluations.”

Junhui grimace-smiles, which draws a more genuine smile out of Hansol.

“Aw, it’s not the end of the world. Look, why don’t we head to the arcade after class, take your mind off things a bit?”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

Hansol’s idea of destressing at the arcade is not bad. In fact, it would have been really good. Except…

“Wahhhh!!!!” Junhui wails, sinking into a curled-up position with his arms hugging his knees. This really is the worst day ever.”

“But…” Hansol says dumbfoundedly, “…it was open last week. How did it close without any notice?”

The two of them stare at the shuttered doors of their usual arcade hang-out spot, somewhere they had loitered around since Hansol first started at the same high school as Junhui. Among other things, their friendship had been forged from Junhui nearly falling off the motorbike in a racing game, in the flames of heated team DDR tournaments. The arcade closing hurts almost as much as the time they’d missed the all-time pin ball high score by one point and Junhui clutches at his chest dramatically to indicate the level of his pain.

Kwannie slips out and threads between Junhui’s ankles pompously. “Now you two can go to the library instead and study instead of wasting your time—”

“La la la la la I can’t hear you!!!” Junhui says loudly, pressing his hands over his ears.

Hansol crouches down with a toothy smile, patting Kwannie’s head gently. “Should you be talking out here where someone other than us can hear you, Kwannie?”

Kwannie leans into Hansol’s fingers, and he purrs at the light scratching behind his ears. Junhui’s cat gets along better with all of Junhui’s friends than with Junhui himself, but he’s especially compliant with Hansol’s wishes. It has to do with their first meeting, probably, when Kwannie had leapt off the ledge of a wall into Hansol’s arms to deliver his pen, and Hansol had said Junhui’s cat looked like an angel flying through the air.

“The internet café next door is open, and Junhui-hyung seems like he’s been having a rough day. Let’s just stay until dinner and then we can study after that?”

Kwannie just purrs some more, that traitor. Where was the cat was just insisting on the library a minute ago?!

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

“Anyway, hyung, what did you get on the astronomy quiz anyway? It couldn’t have been that bad, right? It was like, mostly just high school chemistry and physics.”

Hansol catches Junhui at a vulnerable moment, when he has his favourite new teen romance webtoon loaded up on his computer screen, and a mouthful of lychee jelly halfway down his throat. There are too many other snacks around him for him to get up and run, he can’t just leave his precious jelly candies behind him! But he can also feel Kwannie’s eyes glaring daggers at him, and Junhui shrinks in his seat, more terrified of his cat yelling at him than he was of getting scolded by his mom for doing poorly on tests in grade school.

“Show me your test,” Kwannie hisses quietly, and Junhui whips his head around to make sure no one’s paying attention to him or his talking cat.

When he’s confirmed no one’s listening in, Junhui sticks his tongue out. “No!” And there’s nothing Kwannie can do about it without opposable thumbs to unzip his backpack and fish out the crumpled up quiz sheet from the bottom of his bag.

Kwannie doesn’t say please, nor does he do anything dignified. He goes straight for the jugular, leaping over Junhui’s hand on the mouse and swiping at the skin with claws out.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, fine!” Junhui relents, pulling his hand back to examine the red welts quickly blossoming behind his knuckles. He makes a sound of displeasure while unzipping his bag, fully intending on getting to the quiz and ripping it before Kwannie can see the grading, but then everything happens too quickly. Kwannie dives inside his backpack, and jumps back out with the sheets in his mouth. Junhui’s reaction is delayed, and although he tries to reach for Kwannie, instead he ends up punching the paper midair, and it falls from Kwannie’s mouth, disappearing behind the barrier between Junhui’s carrel and someone else’s.

The garbled shriek from Kwannie is drowned out by a string of swearing and then, “Aarrgh! I died! Who the hell threw that?! You made me get killed when I was in the middle of winning!”

Junhui swallows while Kwannie scampers into the shadows, somewhere near the ground but out of sight, leaving Junhui to deal with the aftermath alone. He stands up, an apology ready until:

“Damn, this person really is an idiot…How can you not know the number of electrons in a hydrogen atom and be attending university? Forty-five percent?! Which dumbass tried to throw away a quiz they failed on _the periodic table_?”

“That’s mine, thanks,” Junhui snaps, the initial apology withering and dying on his tongue, quickly replaced by annoyance. He quickly snatches his quiz back from the stranger’s hands.

The young man looks surprised at the response, but smirks, rolling back in his chair to call out after Junhui. “Is your brain as soft as all the jello you’re eating? I can’t believe some kid this stupid managed to make me lose the lead.”

Junhui whirls around, glaring. He’s ready to give the asshole in the green jacket a piece of his mind but Hansol gets in his way, one hand placating on Junhui’s shoulder, the other on his hip. “Hey man, chill. It’s just a game, and he didn’t mean to do that. There’s no need to call someone stupid for something that was an accident.”

“Just a game? I—”

“Wonwoo-ya, what the hell?” interrupts a new stranger, peering over top of the carrels to peer at the group. “How’d you miss the last kill? We almost won!”

“Ah, sorry Seungcheol-hyung. I lost sight of my computer screen because of this dumb jellohead over here—”

“Who are you calling jellohead?!” Junhui yells indignantly, fingers curled into fists at his sides. Kwannie’s always telling him not to use violence as the answer given, well, everything, but there’s a blur of black fur, and it’s a strange day indeed when even Kwannie feels like someone’s being mean enough to Junhui that it requires retaliation.

But before Kwannie can do any damage (which is a lot, given his teeth and claws), Junhui’s communicator buzzes in his pocket. He, Hansol, and Kwannie freeze and look at each other.

“We have to go,” Junhui says quickly, biting down his annoyance at being thought of as an airhead for the umpteenth time. He has a B average in all the courses for his literature major and he’s good at solving problems in extenuating circumstances. But as much as he wants to angrily tell off this character, there are more important things to handle. “Come on,” Junhui says, shouldering his backpack quickly and scooping Kwannie up in his arms.

“Yeah, you better scram, jellohead!” calls out the asshole behind them. Just before the door closes, a quieter, “Is that guy’s cat sticking its tongue out at us? Are cats even allowed in here?”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

“Change on the way? Once we get there?” Hansol asks, jogging beside a Junhui still struggling to get both his arms through the straps of his bag.

“Seems far,” Junhui says. “We’d better change on the way. I think everyone else will get there before us.”

Hansol calls out, “Mercury power…change up!” first, and the transformation process happens in front of Junhui’s eyes, no less magical than the first time he’d seen himself go from Moon Junhui to Sailor Moon in front of a mirror.

Ah yes, so about living a ‘pretty normal’ life. Seriously, it was otherwise normal. It’s just that he has a talking cat. And that by shouting a particular phrase, his sneakers turn into combat boots, his jeans into a sleek pair of dark navy dress trousers, his shirt into a fancy white number with a blue and white striped collar and a loosely tied scarf.

Also, he fights evil.

Being Sailor Moon, complete with the sailor outfit, is really not that weird. It’s like when university students take up a part time job. Only Junhui’s part time job is stopping demons from sucking up the energy of innocent humans, championing love and justice, making sure right triumphs over wrong. Or maybe Junhui thinks it’s pretty normal because most of his friends were sailor scouts too, fighting alongside him. That, he supposes, might have strengthened the bond between him and Hansol more than the video games at the arcade.

Almost right after the words “Moon prism power, change up!” are out of Junhui’s mouth, he’s mumbling about it being “the worst day ever”, once again.

“Hyung, I don’t want to be the one to ask this, but could you not say that anymore? I feel like every time you say it’s the worst day ever, the universe takes it as a challenge and tries to come up with something worse,” Hansol says somewhat apologetically.

“Ugh, fine,” Junhui says, “let’s just hurry up. Mi—Mars is gonna yell at us for being late again.”

To maintain their secret identities, they call each other by their scout names. Junhui has a hard time remembering though, especially when he’s close to each of them outside of their side job. Minghao doesn’t usually have any problem calling Junhui by his callname though, because he’s always barking out Junhui’s surname for one reason or another.

Like now.

“Moon!” He crosses his arms, already transformed with the other sailor scouts and Venus’s cat. “Why are you always the last one to arrive? Were you lingering at the arcade again?” Junhui stamps his feet childishly. “Mercury is literally right here with me! And the arcade _closed_ permanently, thanks.”

“Uh, maybe we should not bicker and focus on the mission…?” Jupiter suggests.

“Nah,” Venus denies quickly, voice wistful. “I love it when Mars fights someone other than me.”

“Yeah, well, _all_ of you can fight each other later. What we know now is that a lot of people have been attending this new cram school recently and while some parents were happy, a few were suspicious that their kids suddenly become studyholics,” Jupiter explains.

Venus pipes in, “Hoonie investigated and it seems a demon opened this place up to absorb energy from the students for yet unknown reasons. The same as the last few that popped up.”

“And some of the students fainted today?” Mercury asks, peering him from his transponder. “The ambulance report…”

“Right,” Jupiter continues. “Initially they thought it was from overworking, which is scary but not that widespread. But then some of the others lost consciousness too and the first one was still unconscious at the hospital so the police cleared the building in case there was something more serious, like a gas leak.”

“There are security cameras everywhere. The demon will be bound to know if we enter,” Mercury points out.

“But it’s outnumbered, and there are only two entrances. Moon, Mercury, and Mars should enter through the front. Jupiter and I will go through the back in case the demon tries to escape.”

Junhui nods. “For love and justice!”

“It’s really okay if you don’t shout that every time, you know,” Mars mutters, falling in beside Junhui before kicking down the front door like it’s a piece of cake.

“It’s really okay if you don’t snipe at every single thing I do, you know,” Junhui mutters back, only to have Mercury shush him as they head up the stairs.

Junhui senses the demon before he sees it. One second everything is still and quiet, the next there’s a whisper of something in the air. He turns around and flings the moon charm he keeps clipped on his belt out in the direction of whatever it is giving him goosebumps. It misses the demon, but successfully counters the blast of dark energy that had been headed their way.

“Over here!” Junhui shouts, alerting Venus and Jupiter while Mars and Mercury corner the demon with a long whip-like span of flames, before trapping it in a cascade of bubbles.

After being subjected to Jupiter’s lightning strike and Venus’s crescent beam, it’s clear the demon has been significantly hurt. But its tight clutch on the tablet in its hands doesn’t weaken. From here, now that the demon can no longer project or weaponize its dark energy, its humanoid form becomes more obvious, really just looking like a teacher from Junhui’s nightmares.

“That must be what it’s using as a store point for the energy it’s collecting. We have to break its control over that,” Mercury says.

“Just give it up!” Junhui says loudly. “You’re outpowered and outnumbered. Give us the tablet and we’ll make this as painless for you as possible.”

The demon scowls, and starts forming its own barrier of dark energy, acting as a shield.

“Did you really think that would work?”

“It was worth a try. Give it a chance, you know—”

“—But now you’ve made it even harder for us—”

Suddenly, a rose flying through the air interrupts all of them, the knife-point tip of its stem and all its thorns slicing through the demon’s hands. The demon can’t help but drop the tablet, which Kwannie and Hoonie hurry to bat away.

The sailor scouts turn to the direction from which the flower was thrown.

“Tuxedo Mask!” Junhui exclaims, the words leaving his mouth before he’s properly processed the new presence. In the doorway, a man dressed in a full tuxedo stands, half of his face hidden by the white mask covering his eyes.

Then, from behind them, there’s the sound of glass being smashed as the demon, already bleeding, jumps through one of the windows facing into the hallway.

“Don’t let it get away!”

They give chase to the rooftop, where the demon disappears into a storage room just as the sailor scouts and tuxedo mask arrive.

“It’s trapped now,” Jupiter says.

“No,” Junhui says, quickly surveying their surroundings. “It’s trying to trap us. Why would it lead us up here when it could have run out one of the exits? Or jumped over the ledge instead of locking itself inside a room? There must be something in there that can help it.”

“Wow Moon, you can be smart too sometimes, huh?” Mars says, vaguely impressed.

“The thought only came to me because it was really tiring running up all those stairs,” Junhui admits, “but no quips about my IQ today please.”

“He’s feeling sensitive today,” Mercury supplements. “Someone called him ‘jellohead’ for failing his astronomy quiz.”

Mars makes a face. “How did you fail—never mind. What do we do now?”

“Trap or no trap, we have to get rid of the demon, or it’ll try to hurt more people. At least now we’re prepared for the unexpected,” Junhui says quickly.

The others nod their assent and they quickly find out what they’re up against when Venus blasts open the storage room door and gets thrown back by the force of the dark energy emanating from inside.

Junhui is next closest, and braces for the impact with his eyes shut. He hears Jupiter calling out to Venus and helping him up, but nothing hits him. When he opens one eye, he finds a solid form in front of him, Tuxedo Mask wincing with his cape held up, using his body like a shield. He’s obviously in pain, but no one has time to notice or react, too busy using their powers to try to fight back the barrier protecting the demon inside.

“Sailor moon,” Tuxedo Mask bites out, gritting his teeth and nodding toward him. It takes Junhui a moment to understand, but then his battle instincts kick in: he ducks down and low, heaves a huge breath, and then darts away from safety to throw his moon charm into the room. It comes boomeranging back toward him, but cuts through whatever powers the demon was using, leaving a clear path for Mars to whip out a talisman and incapacitate the demon, which lies immobile with the paper amulet piercing its forehead, fluttering lightly in the aftermath.

“We did it!” Junhui is first to cheer. “Tuxedo Mask, are you okay?” he turns around to ask, but the space is empty save for the other sailor scouts.

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

“Are you going to spend more time at the library now that the arcade is closed?” Minghao asks, poured over his history notes on the dining room table while Junhui heats up leftovers for dinner. “It’s really kind of embarrassing that you did so badly on something so easy.”

“He ended up at the internet café,” Kwannie tattles. “But you’re right. It is embarrassing that one of the people supposed to be in charge of making sure good triumphs over evil doesn’t even understand basic principles of the universe.”

“That’s mean!” Junhui points a spatula at his cat. “I’m the one who feeds you every day you know.”

“Don’t worry, Kwannie, it’s not like you’d go hungry with me here,” Minghao says breezily.

Junhui briefly considers putting unbearably spicy peppers in Minghao’s rice. What, it’s not like his cat and roommate aren’t conspiring right in front of him! “I was in the humanities stream, so I didn’t take science classes in high school, okay, I don’t know what any of this stuff is about…only something about an apple falling from a tree…”

“If you don’t have the background you should get a tutor.”

“I should,” Junhui agrees easily. “And you should get your stuff off the table. It’s time to eat.”

“Don’t try to deflect,” Minghao says, closing a textbook with an audible thud. “I can clean up and talk to you at the same time.”

“You should care more about your studies, Junnie,” Kwannie says emphatically. “Listen to Minghao. Your school offers tutors, doesn’t it?”

“Out of curiosity, Kwannie,” Junhui begins, bringing some plates of food out to place on the table while his cat walks close enough to his feet that Junhui can feel his fur brushing against his skin. “What would have happened if I never saved you from those kids that day we met? I could have gotten a pet cat from the animal shelter. Would you have found someone else to trick into being sailor moon, or whatever?” “No,” Kwannie says, while giving Junhui a distinctly ‘ _but maybe I should have_ ’ sort of look.

“Adopting Kwannie is basically the only time you’ve ever taken control of your own life,” Minghao says, plucking out a pair of chopsticks from Junhui’s hands. “You’ve got to start living it, instead of just letting life sort of happen around you. You can’t just float aimlessly forever.”

“Why not?! And besides, I’m not just floating aimlessly. I go to school and stuff. The astronomy class isn’t even for my major!”

“So you’re just going to keep going to class without understanding anything then? Because it’s not your major?”

“Okay, fine!” Junhui stops abruptly to prod at the bowl of salad vegetables he’d tossed together haphazardly. “Hey Haohao…”

Minghao stares at him.

“Wanna tutor me?” Junhui asks brightly, flashing a winning grin before continuing, “You took this stuff before, right?”

“No.”

“Haohaooooo~ I’m not that terrible of a student.”

Minghao shudders at the whine of the nickname. He looks down his nose at Junhui and swallows before saying, “Just because you’re not a terrible student doesn’t mean you’re a good one. Or that you wouldn’t use this as a way to be annoying. Besides, I don’t have the time.”

“I’m not annoying—”

“—even more annoying than usual,” Minghao amends.

“Hmph. So mean.” Junhui pouts, hunched over and continuing to pick at dinner.

“Ge,” Minghao softens, “You know it’s not because I don’t want to help you. It’s just really busy at the shrine all the time these days. It didn’t seem so bad at the beginning of the semester but now…it’s like I spend all my time there and then when I get off work I’m too exhausted to do anything, but there’s still our, uh, evening excursions. Those don’t help either.”

Junhui jerks upright and looks intently at Minghao. “You should rest then. I’m sure we can rotate you off the roster for a bit.” He chances a glance at Kwannie, whose usually wide eyes are narrowed. “If you need a break, the rest of us will cover for ya, no questions asked, you know that.”

“It’s not going to affect my performance,” Minghao says tightly.

“Who said anything about that?! I’m just worried about you…”

Minghao rolls his eyes. “Worry about yourself, Moon. How long are you going to crush uselessly over Tuxedo Mask?”

Junhui nearly chokes on the piece of cucumber in his mouth, while Kwannie makes a sound like he’s hacking up a furball. It might be a laugh. Junhui sends him a withering look. “I don’t crush uselessly!”

“No, you just got so distracted swooning over him today that the demon almost got away.”

“I wasn’t swooning, okay.”Minghao raises an eyebrow. “But you admit you were distracted?” Junhui huffs. “I don’t understand how you could be _not_ distracted. He’s always there at the right time! It’s really nice to have someone save you. And his voice is nice. And his shoulders are nice. Oh, and his chin. And—” “—Oh my god, enough. Can you please do something about this crush so it stops interfering with our missions?”

“How did you manage to make this about my failings again?” Junhui wails. “I just wanted to help! Ah, I thought of something. If you don’t want to take a break, how about I come help out with you on the weekends? That should make things easier for you, so you’re not as tired.”

“You’re not going to get paid,” Minghao says. “We just took on a casual part-timer at the start of the year and it’s not like we’re rolling in money.”

“That’s okay! It’ll be fun,” Junhui says, throwing up a V-sign.

“Fine. As long as you help more than you get in the way.”

“I’m very good at doing chores,” Junhui says amicably.

They eat in silence for a period after that, Minghao nearly dozing off into the remnants of his meal while Kwannie licks his bowl clean. When Junhui finally puts down his chopsticks, Minghao suddenly seems to jump awake again. “Wait. You’re not just doing this to get out of studying, right?”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

The next few days pass by relatively quietly, considering their line of work. Junhui flips between the apartment, school, and the bubble tea place down the block, where he sets up camp in a corner table and works on finishing an essay due by the end of the week. He keeps Kwannie close as long as he’s not in class, a corner of his attention always locked away in case the communicator goes off. Another bit of his mind he reserves for Minghao, bringing home extra takeaway at night and leaving health drinks on the dining room table so Minghao can have them with breakfast in the morning.

Junhui wonders if it’s the flu, and Minghao’s just trying to fight off the inevitable. It’s rare for him to feel tired – rarer still for him to say so explicitly. There’s some youthful energy there that Junhui’s a bit envious of, even if he’s only a year older. Junhui likes to stay at home and lie on the couch as much as possible, especially after a long week of school, but Minghao isn’t at all similar. Minghao goes out to explore new things, and finds it rejuvenating to go to the gym. Just thinking about it makes Junhui feel like he’s losing energy. It has something to do with drive, or having that whole handle on your life thing instead of floating aimlessly. Not that Junhui is floating aimlessly. At any rate, a tired Minghao worries him a bit.

He’s still thinking about how he hopes that their superpowers won’t be needed for a while so Mars could have a break when he suddenly rises from his seat. Junhui had been meaning to head to the bathroom, and doesn’t realize Kwannie had fallen asleep on his lap until his cat is screeching and darting across the floor, scaring a half dozen patrons, leading to both of them getting kicked out and putting Kwannie in a mood.

They end up at the internet café after Junhui scopes out the nearest Starbucks but can’t find an empty table. Kwannie complains they can just go to a library, but Junhui hates the silence of the study spaces there, and the dark looks people give you if you so much as cough.

“You’re just moody because I woke you up from your afternoon nap, and I already apologized for that,” Junhui mutters after ordering a drink from Soonyoung, the part-timer who knows Junhui likes things milky and extra sweet. Kwannie continues sulking inside his jacket, with only his head poking out so no one can tell how painfully he’s digging his claws into Junhui’s skin.

“That’s true,” Kwannie agrees, “but also this place is over-air conditioned and smells like sweaty men.”

“Is that not what you have to smell every day?”

“You’re a sweaty man who showers,” Kwannie allows.

“I’m glad you think so highly of me,” Junhui says mildly, before nearly jumping out of his skin at the sound of a voice behind him.

“Did your cat just talk?”

Junhui whirls around just in time for Soonyoung to come back to the counter with his order. “Here ya go, Junnie,” he says, before turning to the guy who had called Junhui ‘jellohead’ a few days ago. “What can I get you, Wonwoo-goon?”

The man, Wonwoo, stares strangely at Junhui and Kwannie for several seconds before seeming to remember himself. “Oh, uh, right. You should do your job properly Soonyoung, the garbage bin in the washroom is as gross as you are.”

“Just because he’s an employee doesn’t mean he’s below you, jerkface,” Junhui replies in Soonyoung’s stead, as scathingly as he can manage. There’s more than a little lingering resentment from their meeting a few days ago, for sure, but Junhui can also acknowledge the role of his old high school crush on Soonyoung. He might be over him, but Junhui still feels defensive, especially with the comment coming from this asshat.

“Whoa! What did you do to make our Moon Junnie dislike you so much?” Soonyoung laughs, eyes creasing cutely. His appearance softens Junhui’s heart but not his glare.

“M—? Uh,” Wonwoo swallows, eyebrows furrowed. He’s still staring at Junhui’s cat with the oddest look on his face. “I might have been, uh, a little bit rude on our first impression.”

“Ugh. Don’t worry, Junnie, Wonwoo’s all bark and no bite. He might say some mean things sometimes but he’s mostly harmless. Teases me like that all the time.”

Wonwoo’s eyes lift up from Kwannie to meet Junhui’s gaze. “You did drop your failed quiz on me while I was in the middle of a game. Anyone would be angry.”

Junhui makes a noise in the back of his throat like Kwannie when he gets tetchy and grabs his drink, ready to head to his cubicle and finish the damn essay and leave the café and the people in it. Of course it would be his luck that he’d run into this dude again.

“Hey, do you need a—no, you definitely need one. I mean, do you want a tutor? I mean I’m not an astronomy major but I took two semesters of physics and orgo so high school level stuff is a breeze.”

“Maybe for you, but I never even took _high school_ physics! I’m not paying you to insult my intelligence some more,” Junhui hisses in disbelief. He’s feeling very huffy now and rethinking the internet café situation altogether.

“I didn’t mean…I’m not asking you to pay me,” Wonwoo says, wincing. “It’s just to make up for…the things I’ve said.”

“Aww, Junnie, Wonwoo’s actually really smart. He spends all of his time here instead of doing any work but his grades are still amazing.”

“I’m not—”

“—If you’ve never taken high school physics isn’t that more reason to get a tutor? Do you just go to class and feel happy leaving without understanding anything?”

“It’s—” Junhui wants to tell the jackass that it’s none of his business, but the comment hits too close to what Minghao had been saying to him a few nights ago that Junhui freezes, dumbfounded.

“Look,” Wonwoo says, holding up his phone to display the QR code on the screen. “I’m here most days anyway, so I’m not really busy. If you want, you can just message me. The offer stands. Why don’t you think about it?”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

Friday afternoon, after Junhui submits his just-finished essay, he heads out in clean slacks to meet up with Seokmin so they can volunteer together at the shrine. The shamans don’t seem to mind what they wear, but Minghao thinks it’s weird for people working there to be wearing jeans or sweatpants. It’s a pleasant walk in this weather, if a bit long, and Kwannie runs up the stairs ahead of Junhui, finding himself a spot for sunbathing within moments while Junhui looks for Seokmin and Minghao.

Minghao’s assigned him to cleaning duties, and Junhui holds his broom near where Seokmin is carefully folding small white hand towels. “So,” Junhui says, waggling his eyebrows, “I saw Soonyoung working yesterday.”

“Yeah?” Seokmin says, keeping his head down to hide the pink rapidly tinging his cheeks.

“Yup. And…” Junhui trails off with a grin, relishing in the way he can see Seokmin fighting to act uninterested while wanting to ask ‘and what?’ at the same time. Truthfully, Junhui had gotten over his crush on Soonyoung of his own accord, but it’s a good thing he’d been as fast about things as he was. It hadn’t been long afterward that Seokmin and Soonyoung had met, and Seokmin told Junhui about his own crush. Seokmin and Soonyoung had danced around each other for years, and there was _something_ going on between them now, although neither was quite eager to put a label on their relationship. If it came down to it, Junhui would give his life for his friends, and he would never have fought Seokmin over a crush. But also, if they did fight, well, Junhui’s seen Jupiter’s thighs and fists take down many a bad guy and he wasn’t the type to seek out that kind of punishment.

“Hyung! I can’t believe you’re going to make me ask you…fine! And what?!”

Honestly, they were too cute. It was adorable. “He said to say ‘hi’ if I saw you.” Junhui giggles. “Also, that he wants to see you.”

The blush on Seokmin’s cheeks deepens. “We were supposed to go for sushi on Monday. But then, you know, stuff happened so I had to cancel.”

“Ahhhh!!!” Junhui yells, “You cancelled your date!” “Hyung! It wasn’t like that! I just said I hated when weekends ended and there was nothing to be excited about anymore, so he said he’d buy me a meal on a Monday as something to look forward to. But only because he’s a senior, like you older ones are supposed to buy us food because we’re younger. It wasn’t a date or anything, you’ve totally got the wrong idea.”

“That’s so cute!! You don’t have to be shy about it, Seokgu, it’s so nice that he wanted to do something to make you happy. When’s the wedding going to be? Can I be best man? Wait, I guess that’ll go to Jeonghan-hyung—”

“—Junhuiii-hyunggg,” Seokmin whines.

“Yeah Junhui.” Minghao shows up suddenly, as if summoned. Junhui knows they have some abnormal superpowers as sailor scouts, but sometimes he wonders if Minghao has even more extra special powers than the rest of them. “I knew you’d get no work done here even if you offered to help. You’ve been sweeping the same corner for fifteen minutes!”

“Sorry, Haohao, just getting some updates on Seokmin’s boyfriend situation.”

Minghao makes a disgusted look. “Boyfriend? So you’re officially dating then?”

“What?! No!” Seokmin nearly knocks over his pile of towels from feeling flustered. “I’m not—wait. Who did you think it was?”

“Oh thank god. No offense to Soonyoung-hyung but men are disgusting and I have no idea why you’d want to date one.”

“Soonyoung—hang on. You’re also a man?” “Exactly,” Minghao says blandly. “That’s how I know they’re the worst. And I would never subject a woman to have to date one either. What a waste of time for all parties.”

Seokmin half-laughs, as unsure whether or not the tone is a joking one as Junhui is. “You monk.”

Minghao waves a hand at the grounds of the shrine around them impatiently. “Clearly.”

“How come you got all on my ass about, um, you-know-who then?” Junhui demands.

Seokmin frowns. “Who’s you-know-who?”

“His crush,” Minghao replies, ignoring Junhui’s question altogether.

“Ohhh. _Him_ ,” Seokmin says knowingly.

“Wait, how do you know who you-know-who is?” Junhui places one hand on a hip and uses the other to bang his broom against the ground. He’s sure about Minghao’s extra powers now, and he’s certain one of them is a knack for turning conversations on Junhui in a split second. He had been teasing Seokmin so successfully before Minghao butted his pointy chin into things.

“Your crush is really obvious,” Kwannie offers, from the bushes nearby, where Junhui thought he’d been catnapping in the sun.

“Which is why I think you should say something to him so he can reject you properly and we can all be over it,” Minghao says primly. “There’s no way he hasn’t caught on. Why else would he disappear so quickly after missions if it wasn’t to avoid talking to you?”

“Excuse me,” Junhui splutters.

But Minghao continues on, unperturbed. “Of course, you’re content to not take action about anything so you’ll just waste away with this useless crush. I bet you haven’t looked for an astronomy tutor either.”

“I have!” Junhui retorts, knowing full well that he hasn’t. “And I already found one.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not!” Junhui says, lying through his teeth. “I’m meeting him tomorrow! He’s going to teach me about gravity, and stuff!”

For a moment, it seems like Minghao is going to argue back. He opens his mouth to say something, and then closes it, and then opens it again, before taking a deep inhale and shrugging. “Okay. Colour me impressed,” Minghao says, pulling the corners of his lips down quickly before returning his expression to neutral and nodding.

‘ _Oh shit_ ,’ Junhui thinks to himself, ‘ _oh shit, shit, shit_.’

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

“You’re going to ask that guy to tutor you?” Kwannie asks, hopping up onto Junhui’s desk at home while Junhui mopes in his bed that night.

“I…guess…” Junhui bites out, taking a deep breath to send the first message. It’s a simple ‘ _Hi, this is Junhui_ ’ but it takes a lot of self-will to actually get it out there. The way he sees it, Junhui’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. He can either get this asshole to tutor him and put up with the constant jibes or admit to Minghao that he lied and face Minghao’s Loud Disapproval with his tail (figurative, he’s not Kwannie) tucked between his legs.

“You’re going to ask the guy who called you stupid?” Kwannie asks again, more pointedly this time.

Junhui starts to say something back, but then his phone vibrates and he drops it on his face. He reads the reply while rubbing the sore spot on the bridge of his nose.

‘ _junhui?_ ’  
‘ _oh, the guy from the internet café, right?_ ’  
‘ _decided you want a tutor after all?_ ’

He grimaces at his phone. “Kwannie, am I making a mistake?”

“Yes,” Kwannie replies, right as Junhui sends back, ‘ _Yeah_.’

‘ _ok. when do u wanna meet?_ ’

Kwannie sighs, hopping down from table to jump up beside Junhui in bed. He peers over Junhui’s shoulder at his phone screen and then sighs again. “But I guess you wouldn’t be Sailor Moon Junhui without the mistakes.”

Junhui hums. ‘ _Tomorrow?_ ’

There’s a whole minute without a reply where Junhui says nothing, and Kwannie refrains from doing much more than twitching his whiskers.

‘ _…tomorrow?_ ’ is the eventual reply, and the doubt Junhui had been keeping at bay floods into his stomach.

What was he thinking, really? He must have lost his mind, only realizing exactly how terrible this tutoring arrangement idea is after asking. The two of them had only spoken to each other in two conversations but already there was so much bad blood between them. It would never work. Any time Junhui did anything remotely wrong Wonwoo was bound to bring up the game he lost, and it wasn’t like Junhui would be able to quickly forget being called ‘idiot’, ‘dumbass’, and ‘jellohead’ all that quickly.

‘ _If you can’t do tomorrow then just forget about it _,’__ Junhui sends back quickly.

This Wonwoo character seemed like he was on good terms with Soonyoung and yet he was still mean to him. It could only be worse with Junhui.

Although…Junhui’s friends were kind of mean to him anyway. Like, if he told Minghao he’d been lying about the tutor thing, well. Actually, it wouldn’t have been that bad if all it had been was a lie. Junhui could deal with Minghao’s wrath. He’d get yelled at for a half hour, and possibly several lectures and snide comments thereafter, but then Minghao would get over it and they’d put it behind them. But this time, Junhui has a sense that rather than being angry, Minghao would just be disappointed. Disappointment meant less yelling and more silent treatment. Annoyed Minghao was something Junhui could deal with. He wasn’t so sure he could deal with not being able to talk to his best friend.

Junhui groans. A rock and a hard place indeed.

‘ _no, it’s fine_.’  
‘ _i’ll see u in front of the café? around 2?_ ’

After a feeble whimper, Junhui replies with his agreement, unsure whether he managed to do something really great or truly horrible.

__  

☽ ☽ ☽

 

On Saturday Wonwoo teaches Junhui about matter, molecules, and mechanics.

It happens like this:

First, Junhui wakes up unnecessarily early and copes with his stress by making six different meals as options for his and Minghao’s breakfasts. Minghao gives him a weird look when he wakes up, but is happy to eat and then heads off to the shrine for his weekend shift. After Minghao leaves, Junhui stress eats two bowls of noodles and accidentally falls asleep on the couch from overeating. He doesn’t wake up until half an hour before 2pm, when Kwannie kneads at his face with his paws.

Then, because he’s behind schedule, Junhui sets off at a sprint for the internet café and runs straight into someone’s back while rounding the corner.

Junhui lets out a quiet, “Oof,” and winces, while someone yells at him.

“Watch where you’re going!”

And of course, _of course_ , the someone is Wonwoo.

Of course.

“Oh.” Wonwoo blinks. “It’s—It’s you.”

“Sorry,” Junhui says roughly, “I didn’t want to be late.”

“Well,” Wonwoo starts to say, but finishes with another, “well.”

Junhui squirms. “Are we gonna go inside, or…?”

“Oh, no. There are group study rooms on campus. Uh.” Wonwoo pauses, scratching at the back of his neck. He’s wearing the same green jacket he’d been wearing the first time Junhui and him met, and now that the anger-slash-embarrassment tinted spectacles are off, Junhui can begrudgingly admit that Wonwoo fills out the shoulders rather nicely. “Soonyoung said we go to the same school. And that we’re the same age.”

“You talked to Soonyoung about me?” Junhui asks, frowning.

Wonwoo shrugs. “I see him here almost every day,” he says, “we’re good friends,” as if it explains everything. Junhui doesn’t think it explains anything. Junhui sees Minghao every day but that doesn’t mean he talks to him about everyone they both know.

He doesn’t say any of that though. Instead, he says, “Okay, let’s get going then.”

They walk to campus without exchanging another word. Not that they have a particularly long distance to go, but Junhui’s mind flits this way and that, unable to determine whether the silence is awkward or comfortable. He decides on neither. It’s not pleasant, that’s for sure, but nor is it unwanted. Awkward would be if they opened their mouths to speak but came up short for anything to say to each other. But neither Junhui nor his new tutor even try, and the unease that stems from their mutual disregard settles under Junhui’s skin in an even weirder way.

After passing by some reserved spots, they finally find an empty room and settle down, with Junhui sitting down holding his backpack close to his chest, resting on his knees, while Wonwoo slings his bulky messenger bag off his shoulder and deposits it onto an empty chair. It’s not until after Wonwoo shrugs off his green jacket and drapes it over the back of his seat that he finally speaks.

“We ought to establish what you need to know first, and then we can determine where to go from there.”

He sounds very businessman-like. All professional, and proper, and a whole bunch of other adjectives that Junhui finds very foreign and _cold_. Junhui takes his folder of notes out of his bag, struggling to flip through the pages inside to find the course syllabus that he knows he checked was in here beforehand. He doesn’t look up at Wonwoo but it feels like a pair of eyes are boring into his head, and each second that ticks by without him finding the document feels like another second closer to Wonwoo calling him names and the entire charade ending.

It does feel like a charade to Junhui, and he wouldn’t have been terribly surprised had they arrived and Wonwoo announced the joke was up. His suspicions linger, not knowing just why a stranger, especially one who’d seemed so hostile about a week prior, would suddenly want to help him. He’d thought through the possibilities in his head, like the chance that Wonwoo was doing this to teach him stuff that was blatantly wrong, but that seemed extravagant and not worth all the effort when Junhui was already failing anyway. The other option was that Wonwoo had simply made the suggestion because a mutual friend was nearby and had no real intention of ever tutoring Junhui. Junhui himself only took up the offer because of an accident, but Wonwoo wasn’t being held to do this. He could have said ‘no’, he could have not shown up outside the café, he could have even ignored Junhui’s message.

But worse than that apprehension niggling in Junhui’s belly was how childish Junhui felt next to him. Wonwoo said they were the same age, but, whether from being called immature his whole life or by the aura Wonwoo exuded or both, Junhui felt like a schoolkid about to get in trouble with the teacher for forgetting to bring his homework.

“It’s here,” Wonwoo says suddenly, trapping a sheet of paper down with his fingertips.

Junhui stops mid-flip and stares.

“The syllabus. I think you shuffled past it the first look because the title isn’t obvious.” Wonwoo wiggles the stapled two sheets of paper out of Junhui’s notebook and pulls it toward himself, expression neutral and inscrutable. It takes him a few moments to skim through the lecture outlines and class schedule, a few moments during which Junhui fidgets with his fingers and misses Kwannie something fierce. It didn’t seem like a good idea to bring his cat when he was leaving the apartment, but the familiar warmth of his small body and soft fur would be a comfort to Junhui now.

Junhui met Kwannie when he was in his second year of high school. To be precise, Junhui had been on his way to class in the morning and spotted a group of grade schoolers in an alley, heckling and jeering. Junhui expected to be stopping bullies but it turned out that the kids were goading a fight between one of the neighbourhood stray dogs and an angry kitten. Junhui’d chased them away, shooing them off to school, before scooping the then tiny cat into his arms and storming into class mere seconds before the front gate closed. The rest, as they say, was history, and they’d rarely spent much time apart although normally Kwannie spent most of the time tucked away somewhere, hidden in Junhui’s clothing so they wouldn’t get kicked out of places that wouldn’t allow pets. Actually, among his friends, only the other sailor scouts even knew Junhui had a cat; they’d managed to keep the secret from Cheng Xiao and Jieqiong for a few weeks now, even though they sat right next to them in the auditorium.

“Looks rather manageable,” Wonwoo says eventually, peering up at Junhui. “I mean, you’ll have some unfamiliar equations to memorize and things like that, but for the most part I think the scope of the course only requires a cursory knowledge of physics. I can cover that.”

A wrinkle forms between Junhui’s brows. There isn’t a real swipe at his intelligence there, surprisingly. Wonwoo is earnest if not exactly kind, and Junhui can only nod. “You don’t…uh, have to. You know that, right?” Junhui says cautiously, figuring he’d give Wonwoo a clear way out in case that was what he was missing.

“What, tutor you? But I said I would, to make up for things.”

Junhui, in even more hesitant tones, says, “I was at fault too, though. I’m sorry I interrupted your game, by the way.”

Wonwoo doesn’t really say anything to that. He pauses to lean back in his seat, slouching down in a manner incongruent with the way he speaks. “Anyway,” he says, completely blowing over Junhui’s point. “Aren’t there tutors offered by the department for people without a background in science? Why didn’t you ask for one?”

“I knew I probably needed one because I wasn’t really following in class…but, well, I guess I was busy and then the first quiz happened before I had a chance,” Junhui says evasively, Wonwoo’s tactic successfully redirecting his attention.

Wonwoo is silent for a moment and Junhui thinks he’s going to get ignored again. “It’s probably for the better,” Wonwoo eventually declares, “as I’m much smarter than all of them.”

And while that sounds more like Junhui had expected Wonwoo to sound after their encounters at the internet café, it doesn’t explain why he would offer to lend those smarts to help Junhui.

When Junhui doesn’t say anything in reply, Wonwoo clears his throat and moves on brusquely, as if he’d been expecting Junhui to laugh. “To get started, do you have your quiz?”

“Why do we need to talk about that quiz again?” Junhui pulls back defensively.

Wonwoo makes an airy sound that might count as amusement. “I’m not going to make fun of your grade…it’s just so I know what you know so far. To see if you need a crash course in the periodic table or other fundamentals.”

It turns out Junhui needs it. Badly. How the hell was he supposed to know that the symbol for lead was ‘Pb’?!

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

“And then,” Minghao says, “Mingyu walked headfirst into the post.”There’s braying laughter from Hansol, who’s probably only over to score free dinner, but Minghao seems happy to recount his day while cooking. There’s a pot on the stove for Minghao’s specialty, making a stew out of any food they have left in their fridge and cupboards from last week’s groceries. Whatever’s bubbling away smells delicious, the savoury aroma wafting through their entire apartment.

Junhui is lying on the couch, in earshot of their conversation, but more focused on rubbing his nose against that of his cat’s, holding Kwannie around the middle and pouting into his fur. Kwannie is not always this receptive to Junhui’s cuddling, but they’d barely interacted all of Saturday, with Junhui spending most of the day and part of his evening in the library, being lectured by Wonwoo on chemical properties and the Newton’s laws of physics. He’d woken up Sunday morning and procrastinated by eating brunch for two and a half hours and then gone back to studying. At this point, his brain is mush.

“How was your weekend, Junhui-hyung? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Junhui sighs, fingers splayed against Kwannie’s soft, warm belly.

“Oh right,” Minghao picks up, “How’d your astronomy tutoring session go?”

“You got a tutor?” Hansol asks, sounding more surprised than Junhui thinks he should. “Did you put in a request form this week?”

“Not…exactly…” Junhui trails off, and then sighs when he realizes that neither of them are satisfied with that answer. He picks Kwannie up before sitting upright and then places him carefully on his drawn knees. “Remember when we went to that internet café because the arcade closed…?”  
“Yeah…” Hansol replies.

Junhui sighs again, knowing that nothing good can come from this. “Okay so I saw that guy I dropped my test in front of when I was there later in the week and he offered to tutor me so, um, yeah,” Junhui says quickly, words smushing together in his rush, and then buries his face in Kwannie’s back while his cat pats his knee with one paw.

“The guy…you WHAT? You’re getting the guy who called you ‘jellohead’ to tutor you?!” Hansol asks in disbelief, his hands going to his head. “Why?! Why would you do that?”

“He called you jellohead?” Minghao asks, eyes raised.

“It wasn’t…” Junhui struggles, trying to find something to say that doesn’t involve his tiny spat with Minghao. “It just sort of happened…And he offered to tutor me to make up for being rude that time.”

“I find him suspicious,” Kwannie interrupts. “And he never actually apologized.”

“This is his apology,” Junhui says, finding himself explaining for a guy he doesn’t really want to defend.

Kwannie huffs, licking a paw disdainfully. “But the word ‘sorry’ never actually left his mouth, did it?”

“No, but it’s not like I didn’t also ruin his game.”

“Exactly,” Kwannie says pointedly, “If that’s the case then why would he offer to help you? Tutoring someone takes a lot of time.”

Hansol tilts his head. “Kwannie has a point. You can get paid a lot of money to tutor someone. The reasoning doesn’t exactly add up.”

Kwannie narrows his eyes, his whiskers twitching. “I don’t like it. I don’t like him.”

“It’s not terrible to experience tough love,” Minghao offers neutrally, which explains his entire relationship with Junhui really. Actually, Junhui would bet his dinner that Minghao was probably sad he didn’t think to call Junhui ‘jellohead’ first. “It’s a good way to figure out where you’re still lacking.”

“Err, Minghao-hyung, I think it’s all tough here. Without any love. They don’t even know each other and he’s offering his time like that, it’s too dubious.”

Junhui sighs for what feels like the hundredth time. “Honestly, so far it’s okay. It just felt like a normal tutoring session. It was weird but I learned stuff and the first midterm is coming up fast…” He shrugs. “As long as he’s not rude again I’ll take it. Shouldn’t all of you be happy for me considering you guys were the ones who said I should find a tutor?”

The truth is, the tutoring session had gone rather unexpectedly well. It was still kind of strange for his tutor to be Wonwoo of all people, but they had been astoundingly productive, and Wonwoo was a very no-nonsense kind of teacher. If there was anything Junhui didn’t know, he explained it carefully, without trying to sound either encouraging or disparaging, kind of like an encyclopedia neutrally disseminating facts. It was a lot easier to follow someone’s explanations than a textbook, but Junhui also felt honour-bound to defend Wonwoo because he was an effective tutor, going at a pace that Junhui could keep up with but didn’t feel like was deliberately slow. “There’s something about him that I can’t quite put my paw on yet,” Kwannie insists, although he’s leaping off Junhui’s lap as he says it, a concession that he’ll leave Junhui to make his own decisions. “It’s the way he smells, call it a cat’s intuition.”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

“So the first midterm is in a little over a week,” Junhui says the second time he meets Wonwoo for tutoring. It’s the Saturday after their first session in the library, and Junhui is tentatively optimistic. He paid attention and understood the radiation and nuclear reactions the professor covered in class this week thanks to Wonwoo going over the basic concepts in chemistry beforehand. He’ll probably only need one day to look over the history of the solar system lectures, or anything that reads like a story. It’s really only the science stuff that Junhui needs to reinforce, and a week seems like plenty of time. He’s finished 50 page papers in less.

“Only matter and classical mechanics then,” Wonwoo remarks, rolling up the sleeves of his sweater. “You’re lucky, jellohead. You won’t really have to get into difficult topics like optics or waves until the next part of the course.”

Junhui stares at Wonwoo’s pale forearms, a bit irked. He knows the material they were going over was high-school level, and he knew it was supposed to be easy, but he was playing catch up and he was trying his best.

Before he can say anything though, Wonwoo starts talking again and Junhui can only narrow his eyes at Wonwoo’s arm hair while getting assigned practice problems from the textbook.

He muddles through the questions slowly, keenly aware of Wonwoo doing something on his phone across from him as the words and numbers and variables on the page fail to make any sense. He scratches some numbers down, does some arithmetic, crosses it out again, and then taps the back of his pencil against the table, willing his brain to remember something useful.

When Wonwoo looks up, around twenty minutes have passed and Junhui’s maybe worked out half of both problems. Which he thinks counts as a 50%. Kind of.

Wonwoo pulls Junhui’s notebook away and his eyebrows furrow. His gaze lifts up to meet Junhui’s eyes and it takes all of Junhui’s sailor scout related fight experience not to recoil in fear. “What are you doing? These are really similar to the questions in the problem set we went over last week. Did you forget it all or did you only pretend to understand when I asked you? Because that’s incredibly stupid.”

“Hey!” Junhui replies hotly, now regretting defending Wonwoo to his friends. “Look, I know you think I’m an idiot. You made that clear the first time we met. But I already said you don’t have to tutor me if you don’t want to. I know it’s supposed to be easy and I’m sorry I don’t get it, but if it’s that annoying to you then you can just leave. You’re so confusing! I can try to find another tutor but you were the one who offered to help and I don’t see why you have to be so rude when it was your idea.”

Wonwoo stares at him and takes a deep breath. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. You got nearly half your quiz questions right without understanding any of the theory behind it, just from rearranging the numbers. Your math is always impeccable. I said it’s stupid of you to pretend that you understand when I explain something if you don’t actually understand it because the whole point of me tutoring you is to help you. We’re wasting our time if you’re not actually getting it.”

“My math is very good! I came first in math Olympiads through middle school! I’m not stupid! None of this angular acceleration stuff is intuitive okay! If I’m wasting your time the door is right there!” Junhui can tell he’s getting a bit too shouty and whiny for the library even if they’re in a closed off room because the tone of his voice is approximating that of when he really gets into pestering Minghao about something and Minghao goes from vaguely annoyed to seriously put off. That and his sentences are super short and he can feel his head steaming. But he can’t believe he put in effort to say nice things to his friends with this as the result and his exam is still in a week.

“What? Why would you not take the science stream in high school if you were winning math contests? And that’s not what I said,” Wonwoo sighs, “First of all, I already said I don’t think you’re stupid. My point is that if it’s not intuitive then you should ask me. That’s why I’m here.”

“It’s obvious even if you don’t say it out right,” Junhui says viciously. “Right off the bat you were talking about how none of this is hard stuff yet blah blah blah. And you keep calling me jellohead! Even if you tell me you don’t think I’m stupid you sure act like you do and it doesn’t make sense why you’d want to help me when you think I’m that dumb.”

Wonwoo makes a face and then raises both eyebrows. “I said that because _I_ find optics and waves hard. And the jellohead thing is just a joke, because I didn’t know your name until last week. I wasn’t implying…” he trails off, and the inability to articulate his thoughts looks award on him. Wonwoo himself seems to arrive at a similar conclusion, giving a frustrated huff and shaking his head. “Look, you’re overthinking this problem,” he says, picking up Junhui’s discarded pencil and underlying a few of the words in the question. “You don’t need to find all these unknowns. You already know work is zero. You wrote it down right here.” Here he circles the ‘W = 0’ Junhui had scribbled down on the sheet of paper. “Try it again. And start the second question from scratch too, you’re confusing yourself by making your work so disorganized. If you have a question, _ask_.”

Junhui works on the questions out of spite more than anything. Frankly speaking, he probably is relatively dumb compared to Wonwoo. Wonwoo sometimes uses words in conversation that Junhui has never heard from another human being before. Soonyoung already mentioned that Wonwoo had stellar grades despite spending all his time gaming instead of studying. But he doesn’t see why that should make him so inferior that Wonwoo looked down his nose at him.

After recalculating his answers for both problems, Junhui surfaces from the world of circular orbits with a triumphant, “Aha!” He picks up his notebook and holds it out toward Wonwoo with a smug sense of satisfaction, forgetting about their earlier spat altogether, too proud of his accomplishment to pay that any mind.

“Mm. Yeah, this is right. You should be good on this for the exam as long as you don’t forget it or overthink it,” Wonwoo says, a little stiffly.

“I’m not going to fail!” Junhui announces cheerily, letting his grin take over his face. “Lead on! What next?”

Wonwoo gives him a weird look but transition smoothly into discussing gravity and the masses of planetary objects.

Oddly, Junhui’s yelling seems to clear the air between them. Junhui’s sense of invincibility returns to him after being able to solve the two questions, and the optimism lasts through dinnertime, turning him into a completely different person from the one who had sulkily stared at the words on the page for a quarter of an hour when he couldn’t figure out how to get started. Afterward, Wonwoo takes more care with his words, and when Junhui stumbles over a concept, or gets a question wrong, he’s supportive and reiterates what Junhui already knows so he can approach the problem in a different way.

If he started Saturday tentatively optimistic, Junhui ends the day positively a ray of sunshine.

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

Mingyu texts the groupchat halfway through the week with the address of a new Mexican restaurant and the words ‘ _Dinner at 7?_ ’

Junhui should be studying of course, so he agrees in a heartbeat and tosses his astronomy textbook aside at half past six to knock on Minghao’s door. There’s a few moments before he gets a mumbled reply of, “I’m not coming. Have some homework to get done. I’ll heat up the leftovers for dinner.”

“Oh…everything’s okay, right, Haohao?” Junhui asks, softly.

“Get going or you’ll be late,” is Minghao’s reply. Junhui wrinkles his nose but he pockets his wallet and keys and leaves the light on in the kitchen.

He smuggles Kwannie with him to dinner, which is probably against some kind of health and safety regulations, but as soon as he finds his friends, Kwannie darts out to curl up beside Hoonie in a corner under the table, unseen, and he thinks it’s a good call. His cat needs to spend more time with other cats instead of humans sometimes, even if the other cat could also talk.

“He never lets me cuddle him like that,” Mingyu says sadly, handing Junhui a menu.

It makes Junhui laugh. Mingyu has always struck him as more of a dog person, and the idea of him trying to get Hoonie to cuddle with him makes Junhui think of a puppy chasing a frazzled kitten, with the puppy only wanting to play but the cat distrustful of the dog’s true intentions.

“Where’s Minghao, hyung?” Hansol asks, drawing Junhui’s attention away from the cats.

Junhui slides into the booth and peers down at the options listed. “Said he needed to study. Technically, I should be studying too but…”

“But there’s no way a textbook could separate you from your one true love, food?”

“You know me so well,” Junhui says, a bright smile on his face. As soon as Mingyu sent the message he’d started craving anything with a tortilla and there wasn’t anything that could get in his way from eating one today.

After deciding on a colourful, likely overpriced cocktail and fish tacos, Junhui takes a moment to scan the restaurant. Mingyu notices him staring at the giant sombrero hanging in the middle of the dining room and grins.

“I’m going to go whack it for candy later,” Mingyu says.

“Please don’t,” Seokmin pleads. “This is why we need Minghao with us at all times.”

Mingyu pouts. “You mean to be a spoilsport? A party pooper? A killjoy?”

“No, so you don’t make a baboon of yourself out in public,” Seokmin replies, just before the waiter arrives to take their order.

They sip on their drinks while waiting for their food to arrive, Junhui’s tasting more of sugar than alcohol, which is just the way he likes it, and probably more appropriate than hard liquor on a week night.

“Although, while we’re on the subject,” Mingyu says slowly, “I’ve been kind of worried about Hao recently.”

Three pairs of human eyes swivel toward him.

“I might just be being sensitive if none of you have noticed it, but he’s kinda more grumpy than usual. Gets annoyed faster? You know how he can act kind of disgruntled when you joke around—”

“—I think that’s just around you and Junhui-hyung—”

“—but normally it’s not really serious? More of a fond exasperation than truly annoyed. Lately though he seems actually ticked off which is not really like him.”

Junhui nods. “He’s a bit grouchier than usual when I leave a mess around. A couple of weeks ago he told me that he was feeling more tired than usual lately. Between all his shifts at the monastery and school and stuff, he doesn’t exactly get a lot of rest.”

“That would explain a lot,” Mingyu says. “As long as it’s not just me…”

After that they make the rounds on catching up with what everyone is doing. Their groupchat is for memes and spur of the moment thoughts, but over dinner is where Junhui hears about Seokmin drunkenly entering a karaoke competition and winning, Mingyu’s sister showing up at the café he worked at part time to make money for saving up to buy a car, and Hansol’s parents’ recent trip to Finland. It’s a high-spirited kind of night, fun without too much drunken behaviour from anyone, and Junhui goes home with a full stomach and a full heart.

He frowns, however, when he steps into the front hall. In the kitchen, the light he kept on is still on, and the food in the fridge untouched.

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

Either one of he or Minghao is rushing to something or another whenever they’re in the apartment at the same time and not sleeping, and Junhui misses the chance to say something to his roommate all week. He sets Kwannie on Minghao watch, however, and hopes that’s enough, because before he knows it, it’s the weekend before his astronomy exam and any confidence he had from the weekend prior evaporates. At the library, the completed review packet sits in front of him on the table, riddled with question marks where Junhui had gotten lost and needed to check his notes.

“Stop having a conniption about it, jellohead,” Wonwoo says. “First of all, you’re going to pass. Second, you still have time to shore up some of the sections you don’t feel as confident in.”

“I’m not having a conniption!” Junhui protests, “I’m just worried.” He probably would have taken Wonwoo’s comment as being condescending the first time they met. And maybe it would have been. But in the weeks since, Junhui’s thought a lot about their interactions, last Saturday’s in particular. He figures that most of the time, when Wonwoo says something mean, even crossing the line mean, he kind of figures it’s funny. A poor sense of humour, perhaps, but not deliberately ill-meaning, and should only really be taken at face value. Wonwoo’s smart, and good at physics, but for someone who’s as clever as he is, and oddly thoughtful at times, he’s also rather self unaware. And in a strange way, Junhui finds the unexpected nature kind of cute.

“Is the conniption really what you’re taking issue with?” Wonwoo asks, tilting his head.

“Should I be upset about something else? Was there a subtle dig at my intelligence again?”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “Last week you were furious when I called you jellohead.”

“And you said it was just a joke, right? Why would I be angry about that now?”  
The corners of Wonwoo’s lips draw downward briefly. “I’m just surprised at how quickly you changed your mind about that. It’s kind of…”

“You can say fickle,” Junhui says, laughing. “Minghao calls me that all the time. But I don’t really think I’m fickle. I’m just good at bouncing back. Adapting.”

Wonwoo raises an eyebrow.

“Minghao’s my roommate. I’ve known him for years. When we were getting our apartment set up we spent five hours at Ikea and he yelled that at me loud enough that everyone in textiles turned to look at us. Actually, technically I have two roommates, but my second roommate is my cat and I’m not sure other people would think of him as a roommate, with him being a pet and all, even though he comes with me everywhere.” Junhui babbles.

“I’ve seen your cat,” Wonwoo says abruptly. “He was with you at the internet café…where is he now, actually?” Junhui suddenly remembers that Wonwoo had seen him and Kwannie talking and he suddenly pulls back. “At home. Um, anyway, so can we go over the third law of motion again? Sometimes I still get the free body diagram wrong.” Wonwoo’s gaze lingers on him for a moment, but he allows the change of topic, and Junhui breathes an internal sigh of relief.

They go over Newtonian laws, the corrected review packet, and work on the practice exam the astronomy department offered, taking only short breaks. Wonwoo’s brought some of his own stuff to do while waiting for Junhui to solve anything he can do by himself, and Junhui’s brief outburst of sharing his home life, they don’t speak very much to each other. But even without words, Junhui feels comfortable. He’s made good progress. When he needs a nudge in the right direction, he slides his notebook across the table, Wonwoo looks at the question, jots down a phrase or circles a variable, Junhui investigates, and more often than not, he’ll get _an_ answer even if it’s not _the_ answer. The Monday exam seems feasible now, and he definitely knows more than half of the material at this point. He’ll pass.

And then, the moon charm on his belt pulses.

Junhui’s back goes ramrod straight, and he accidentally lets out a, “Shit,” out loud.

Wonwoo looks up, trying to find out the cause of the broken silence, and Junhui hurries to pretend to be checking his phone. The hairs on his neck are standing up and he knows he has to go. “Something just came up,” Junhui says, not outright lying. He hurries to pack his stuff away, rising quickly and leaving a stunned Wonwoo behind him. “Thank you! I’ll study hard tomorrow and tell you how the exam goes, bye!” He says hurriedly, and then races off, jamming one hand in his pocket to grip the transformation pen tightly.

It really is just Junhui’s luck that something would go down right before one of his exams. The timing of evil was never good, but it was especially bad now.

Usually, it was one of the cats who found trouble first. Or something strange on the news that one of the scouts investigated. But it just so happened that today’s trouble was happening on campus, and Junhui, being on campus, was the one who got the signal.

He slides into the fitness and recreation centre building while no one’s looking, transforms quickly in a janitor’s closet, and then takes off at a run toward the main gymnasium, where the dark energy is pinging the moon charm like crazy. The transponder the sailor scouts always carry is burning a hole in Junhui’s back pocket, but given Minghao’s state the last time Junhui saw him, he doesn’t want to risk it. Kwannie’s probably on the way already anyway, and if he gets to the problem fast, whatever Sailor Moon needs to face will still be weak and easily defeated without the help of the others, is Junhui’s reasoning.

Junhui half-slams into a wall turning a corner, but doesn’t let it slow him down from bursting through the doorway and finding the imp that interrupted his studies. He’s seen one of this kind before, once, in a hospital, clinging to a middle-aged woman who had previously been in peak physical condition. The imp had absorbed all of her good health to grow stronger, and was waiting for her death to separate from her spirit and form into its own independent entity. The imp in the gymnasium was clearly newly formed, and Junhui doesn’t hesitate to point his star wand at it, sending a burst of light energy to send the thing back into the dark realm. And it’s working. His wager is working out.

Until Junhui passes out.

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

When Junhui’s consciousness returns, he can only groan.

“Sailor Moon?” asks a smooth, low voice, and Junhui’s eyes shoot open.

“Tuxedo Mask!”

He’s being carried, he realizes. There’s an arm under his knees and one supporting his back, and he’s being held like a baby.

“You’re awake,” comes the reply, and then Tuxedo Mask’s lips set into a hard line.

“What happened?” Junhui asks. His shoulder is throbbing, but he’s still alive, or at least he thinks he is. It’s a bit hard to say with Tuxedo Mask carrying him like this, which is not all that different from how he imagines heaven to be like. He’s not sure if it’s because he was just injured and that’s affected him somehow, but he’s seeing Tuxedo Mask in a sort of angelic glow. There’s something reassuring about his jaw, something warm and firm in his chest and arms, and Junhui’s heart flutters against his rib cage, a flitting dance that tickles all his insides.

“There was a baby. Not very strong, but angry enough when you killed its mother to attack back. You’re going to have some bad bruising on your back tomorrow morning, I suspect.”

“You got rid of it?” Tuxedo Mask nods, angling down his chin and sparing a glance at Junhui. “I arrived just in time to see what happened. Why didn’t you send a signal out to ask for help? Why did you run in alone?”Junhui can feel the displeasure rolling off the man carrying him, it comes in waves, but still he’s being cradled to his chest as Tuxedo Mask opens a set of doors, and then gently placed on his side over the infirmary bed. “Mi—Mars was closest,” Junhui says to the wall. “But he’s burning out. It’s team leader’s job to ensure everyone’s wellbeing. I wanted to give him a rest and the energy wasn’t very strong, and besides, the mission seemed manageable by myself. I did my job, that’s what I’m here for.”

All while he’s talking, he can hear someone rummaging in the office behind him, and then a few moments after he’s finished speaking, Tuxedo Mask replies. His tone is angry and matched by a cracking sound when he says, “If that’s your job, then your own wellbeing has to be considered too. You are, in fact, part of the team. And you can’t perform your roles as team leader if you’re dead, Sailor Moon.” But then the press of ice to Junhui’s back is gentle and belies the harshness of his voice.

“I didn’t die,” Junhui murmurs. “And besides, if I had that would’ve been kind of a blessing. Wouldn’t have to take my astronomy midterm on Monday,” he jokes.

Tuxedo Mask doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t let go of the ice pack either, though, and there’s a soft touch to Junhui’s arm.

“Thanks for saving me again though,” Junhui says, voice chipper. “How’d you even know to find me?”

“Moon, I’m not in the business of _enjoying_ finding you hurt. I will do my utmost to protect you. But please, for the love of stars, ask for help when you need it. That’s what we’re here for. That’s what _I’m_ here for.”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

Junhui doesn’t exactly tell anyone about what happened. He doesn’t mean to keep it a secret, but he spends Sunday studying, and there isn’t really a good time in any of his chats to bring it up. He goes into his exam on Monday fairly certain he can at least pull something above a 60, which will balance out his failing quiz grade.

When he gets home, he plans a short nap, but one hour turns into six hours of sleep, and when he wakes, groggy from a fading dream involving masked men, a gentle touch, and Wonwoo reminding him the equation for gravitational attraction. It turns out the only reason he’d woken up is because Minghao had returned home, and when Junhui steps outside, still slightly sleep-drunk, Minghao’s zombie like appearance has Junhui scrambling to cook dinner and resolving not to tell Minghao anything. He’d made the right call, and that was that.

After practically hand-feeding Minghao a meal, Junhui checks his phone to find a text from Wonwoo asking how the exam went.

‘ _I definitely passed_ ,’ Junhui texts, ‘ _but I also definitely would have failed without you. let me buy you a meal as thanks. some time saturday?_ ’

‘ _rn’t u glad u asked someone for help_ ,’ Wonwoo replies, and Junhui takes that as a yes.

“Text?” Minghao asks.

“Yeah,” Junhui says, “Just the guy tutoring me in astronomy.”Minghao frowns a little bit. “You had your exam today, right? How’d that go?”

“Okay, I think. Not going to embarrass you this time,” Junhui says, and then hurries along to ask while Minghao seems up to talking, “Haohao, you’d tell me if something was wrong, right?” A niggling sense of anxiety creeps into his heart, as Junhui remembers that it was a conversation he’d been meaning to have with Minghao for a while.

“No,” Minghao says, rolling his eyes. “But I did already say I was just feeling overworked. 18 hours of being alert every day is kind of taking its toll I guess.”

“I’ll come with you to work tomorrow,” Junhui says quickly, suddenly guilty. He said he’d volunteer with Minghao at the shrine, shown up once, and never gone back.

Minghao makes a face. “You don’t have to.”

“I didn’t phrase it as a question.”

For a moment, Minghao looks like he’s about to bite something back. But then he seems to swallow the retort on his tongue, and all that remains is a quiet, “Fine.”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

According to Kwannie, there doesn’t appear to be anything really _wrong_ with Minghao. And as far as Junhui can see in the morning, that’s true. Minghao is wide awake and all-business folding and writing amulets, leading prayers, lighting candles, so on and so forth. The lethargic Minghao Junhui sees at home (or rather, doesn’t see is more accurate) vanishes in the face of shrine visitors, and even though he’s technically still in-training, everyone else at the shrine seems to turn to him for direction. It seems like an exhausting sort of job, but Minghao is good at delegating and settling disputes.

Of course, Minghao delights in assigning Junhui to manual labour, and he spends the day moving boxes of food, supplies, and covered crates up the steps to the monastery area. He’s on his last trip when, walking through the stone garden, Junhui sees someone familiar whose name he can’t remember. Then a few things happen in quick succession: he accidentally drops the box he’s carrying trying to wave at the person he’s spotted, the person turns around and walks away apparently not noticing Junhui making a clamour, Minghao shows up and smacks Junhui for dropping something, Junhui doubles over in pain because of his still healing shoulder blade.

“I didn’t even hit you that hard,” Minghao says, laughing, thinking it’s just Junhui acting out.

Junhui winces, eyes still squeezed shut. “You didn’t…but I already got hit there and it _hurts_.”

Minghao narrows his eyes. “What? How? When?”

So that’s how Saturday’s events come to light. Junhui thinks it’s better to say it as quickly and succinctly as possible, like ripping off a band-aid, better get it over with instead of trying to peel it away slowly and gently. He uses as few words as possible, doesn’t talk about what attacked him, doesn’t mention any of the sailor scout business. Just a quick, “Went on a solo mission on Saturday night, got hit.” It likely doesn’t really matter. No matter how Junhui explains his injury, choosing not to notify the team, getting attacked and nearly being overpowered, there really is only one possible outcome.

Minghao goes ballistic.

Like, actually bonkers. Junhui doesn’t think he’s ever seen Minghao this angry before, and it’s terrifying. And then Minghao calls up the others, makes them all come to the Shrine, and after finding a more secluded area, forces Junhui to explain, in detail, what happened. He extends the torture by explaining exactly why and how what Junhui did was extremely moronic after nearly every sentence.

“It’s a good thing Tuxedo Mask was close enough to get to you when he did,” Seokmin says. None of them tell Minghao to cut back on the yelling, which is generally a sign that Junhui did a very bad no good thing, but Kwannie’s paw has been on top of Junhui’s hand the whole time and he gets it, kind of. Worry breeds anger, they wouldn’t be this pissed if they weren’t concerned, etc.

Hansol tilts his head. “I think it’s a wake-up call for all of us though. That’s two fights in what, two weeks? It used to be once every few months. They’re getting more frequent, even if not necessarily stronger. I think we need to have a strategy meeting.” He looks at Junhui with a contemplative expression. “It’s actually kind of good that you were there first, because it means no one else was hurt, if nothing else.” Minghao sends him a murderous glance.

“It’s true though. Junhui has a much higher ability to cope with problems than the average person. I don’t think we can just deal with things as they arise. I think we need to start thinking about prevention.”

“Do we know anything about the source of the attacks yet?” Mingyu asks.

Hoonie swishes his tail. “We have some ideas…”

“…but they’re only ideas,” Kwannie finishes.

“Well we should talk about it,” Mingyu says. “And figure out if Tuxedo Mask knows anything.”

“How are we supposed to contact him?” Seokmin asks. “He’s not connected to our transponders. Come to think of it, he just seems to show up whenever Moon’s in danger.”

“Guess we’ll have to dangle him off a cliff,” Minghao says passively, “Which I’m sure he’ll love seeing as how he enjoys running toward danger alone so badly.”

“Hey—” Junhui tries to say, but gets spoken over.

“Can’t we just call him or something?” Hansol asks.

Mingyu rolls his eyes. “How? We don’t have his number.”

“See, Moon? I told you you should have asked him out or something earlier. If you had his number we could just contact him now.”

“What happened to not being a fan of men?” Seokmin asks.

Minghao shrugs. “I don’t support any relationships. But this one clearly needs a minder and Tuxedo Mask is the only man I’m willing to trust him with.”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

“You know, I’m almost surprised your cat isn’t with you. But then, I guess bringing him inside a restaurant would be as weird as having a cat in the library.”

“Kwannie? I sneak him inside restaurants all the time,” Junhui says between slurping his noodles. “He’s with Minghao. That’s the only reason he’s not here.”

Early in the evening Saturday, he and Wonwoo had found a decent eatery not far from the internet café for dinner, and he’s brought his cat here before, though it’s best not to mention it inside.

“Isn’t that a violation of food service regulations of some sort? Don’t you get caught?” Wonwoo asks curiously.

Junhui shrugs. “There are incidents sometimes,” he says, thinking about the unfortunate circumstances at the bubble tea place a few weeks ago, “but usually people don’t notice. Especially if the lighting in the restaurant isn’t good or if the waiters are swamped. We went to that new Mexican restaurant last week and it was too busy for anyone to notice.”

“Oh? The really ostentatious one that opened up near campus this semester? Soonyoung really likes it…it does seems like a place where you could sneak things in and people wouldn’t bat an eye.”

“Ostenta—”

“Don’t think too hard your head hurts, jellohead, it means flashy.”

“I know what it means!” Junhui retorts, putting down his chopsticks. “I’m a literature student, I know, like, _words_ and stuff. I just don’t feel a need to sound like a pretentious knob all the time.”

“Are you calling me a pretentious knob? Does this mean you don’t want me to tutor you anymore?”

Panicked, Junhui waves his hands. “Don’t let me fail,” he whines.

Wonwoo laughs. “Illuminate me, lit major, why are you taking a course in astronomy anyway? Especially one this heavy in astrophysics.”

“Is this when you’re going to act like a jerk and tell me humanities aren’t a real academic subject?”

“I’m not in STEM either,” Wonwoo points out, helping Junhui realize he doesn’t actually know Wonwoo’s major. He’d just been assuming it was something science-y like engineering or medicine. “Although you’re right, humanities aren’t a real academic subject.”

“Jerk!”

“I’ve been called worse,” Wonwoo says mildly.

It makes Junhui feel weirdly guilty. Wonwoo can sometimes say things that aren’t nice, but behind the cool exterior, Junhui still doesn’t think Wonwoo realizes the effect he can have on other people. And sure, sometimes Wonwoo could do things that riled Junhui up, but he wasn’t, like, an outright bad person.

“But you never answered my question,” he continues, unfazed. That might be part of it – other than their initial altercation, Wonwoo doesn’t really react strongly to anything whether positive or negative, and Junhui theorizes that’s why he doesn’t consider others might have an emotional response.

“I need a science course to graduate,” Junhui explains, “but even though everyone says the plant bio course is really easy, it also sounds really _boring_. And I like space and stars and stuff, the solar system, thinking about how we’re technically moving around the sun right now even though we don’t feel like we’re moving, and the moon is orbiting around us but every night we still see it in the sky, at least in part. Isn’t that way cooler than learning to distinguish between different types of leaf?”

Wonwoo gives Junhui a look like he thinks he’s lost it, but only says, “Yeah.”

“Well, go on then,” Junhui says, “What’s _your_ major if it’s not STEM or humanities?”

“Isn’t there only one option left?” Wonwoo blinks. “I’m in business.”

“Ahhhh.” Junhui can see it. Wonwoo’s manner of speaking is formal and strangely professional-sounding even in casual environments. His posture didn’t exactly project powerful corporate manager in a fancy suit, but sometimes Wonwoo would fold his fingers together like Mr. Burns from _The Simpsons_ , or clasp his hands gently like the really scary head of the family types in the melodramas on TV. “Before high school, I thought I was going to go into finance.”

“Finance?” Wonwoo asks, surprised.

“Mhm! I think there are probably other jobs that you can do when you’re good at math but that was the only one my mom thought of, so I’d bring home math awards and think that my job in the future would be to handle other people’s money. Didn’t sound too bad, and I like numbers.”

“Why the switch from numbers to letters then?”

“Because!” Junhui laughs. “When it came time to choosing high schools my homeroom teacher came into our advising meeting, told me, ‘we’ll keep this short since we both know you’re headed to a science school.’ I asked him why and instead of saying something about me being top of the class in math, he said ‘well there’s no way you’re going to be studying something else.’” Junhui gives Wonwoo a sheepish look over his glass of water, and is a bit taken aback by the intensity of Wonwoo’s eye contact. “Um, you see, other than math, all my grades were really really bad. Just scraping by, usually in the last ten percentile, that kind of awful. Well, it depended, if there were interesting stories in history or literature I’d read them but a lot of the questions were about memorizing details and I found that boring. I wanted to know what happened to the staff after an emperor was deposed more than I cared about how long his war lasted, you know?” “I’m not a stranger to your bad grades,” Wonwoo says lightly.

“Don’t be a jerk,” Junhui says sulkily, before quickly returning to his previously jovial state. “Anyway, so when he said that to me I vowed to prove him wrong. Spent the rest of the school year studying all the time and started getting grades in the top ten percentile even though teachers still complained my handwriting was awful.” He laughs again, this time infecting Wonwoo slightly with his mirth and receiving an answering smile. “I showed them, got into an arts school, and now I’m someone who’s good at both numbers _and_ letters.” Junhui pauses. “Just not science. But I’m working on that one, thanks to you.”

“Hmm…” Wonwoo murmurs over his barbecued beef. He cocks his head to the side once and looks appraisingly at Junhui. “Somehow it both does and doesn’t sound like you.” “What, the science?”

“No, I mean, if all that happened to me, I would have completely ignored the teacher’s comment and done whatever the hell I wanted. But you’re…” Wonwoo sweeps his hand through the air, indicating all of Junhui.

“I’m what?” Junhui asks, sounding petulant.

Wonwoo laughs. “Like that. You get mad fast but then you’re cheerful again even faster. It would make sense if you heard that and whined about it for a few days but then went on without it affecting your happiness…except…” Here Wonwoo sends him a sloppy sort of smile. “There’s also a kind of stubbornness to you. I can imagine you completely changing career trajectories to prove someone wrong. It’s kind of weird, but also kind of cute.”

Cute?! Junhui huffs, and then quickly releases the air he’s holding in his mouth. “Minghao complains about it a lot. That I’m super fickle about some things and then super stubborn about others. All the wrong things, according to him.” Junhui lets out a quiet giggle thinking about it.

“It suits you,” Wonwoo says, sounding surprised by his own words. After a moment or two he seems to collect himself and says, more confidently, “In anyone else the coexistence of the two would be jarring, but you’d be less you if you weren’t like this.”

Junhui doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t mind talking about his childhood or his life, telling all sorts of stories about his roommate and school situation openly, but the honest opinion comes out of left field. Normally, people just let him overshare without taking too much to heart. He doesn’t say stuff for people to know him better. That knowledge for everyone. Heck, other than the Sailor Moon business, there aren’t any secrets he keeps. But talking about what Junhui’s like or who he is feels too much like someone’s peering at his soul.

It’s like this: if you walk around buck naked, it’s like you have nothing to hide. But because you’re completely exposed, people tend to look away and in the end it’s less revealing than being entirely covered up.

Luckily, Junhui’s saved from having to reply by Wonwoo flagging down the waiter walking by.

“I said I’d pay!”

“Oh I know,” Wonwoo says, grinning, “I wouldn’t keep myself from a free meal. I was just helping you get started in the payment process.”  
Junhui maturely sticks out his tongue and pulls out his wallet, handing it to the waiter when she comes back. Afterward, bellies full, they slip out the door to the streets, finding that over the course of their meal, evening had turned to night, and darkness covered the sky.

“Want a ride home?” Wonwoo asks, breaking Junhui’s concentration on the roundness of the moon.

“Huh? You drive?” After all their tutoring sessions, they parted ways at the entrance of the library, walking in different directions. Not that he knew everything about Wonwoo, but this was new.

Wonwoo lifts his chin to indicate a motorcycle parked on the street, glittering under the streetlamp. Junhui doesn’t know anything about motorcycles, but it looks _cool_ and the idea that Wonwoo rides one of these things fits way outside his rather geeky image – gaming, good grades…and a biker?

“I can…walk…I’m only a short way away,” Junhui says slowly. Truthfully Junhui’s a teensy bit scared of riding it, but he also doesn’t live far.

“Then it’ll take even less time for me,” Wonwoo says breezily. He tosses Junhui a second helmet and swings a leg over the seat, leaving no room for argument.

After giving Wonwoo his address and a general set of directions, Junhui awkwardly slides in behind Wonwoo, pressed close to his back, but nothing beats the heart hammering discomfort he gets after Wonwoo says, “You’ll have to hold on.”

“To you?!” Junhui asks, over the sound of Wonwoo gunning the engine.

There’s a sound that might be a laugh but is hard to hear. “Onto the passenger handholds,” Wonwoo says, and that’s all the warning Junhui gets before they take off, Junhui grappling for the bars on the sides of the seat below him.

The entire time, Junhui only feels dazed. The motorcycle travels around the same speed as a car, and Junhui’s been in cars before, but the difference is how exposed you are to the elements. When you sit in a car, there’s a windshield, and only now does Junhui understand why it’s called a wind _shield_. Sitting behind Wonwoo on his bike, he can feel the wind at full force, as they wind between cars, able to navigate smaller spaces. He gets home in what feels like no time at all, still dazed and unable to think properly when he’s taking off the helmet and handing it back to Wonwoo.

“I really could have just walked, you know,” Junhui says squeakily, feeling a bit weak in the knees.

“Eh. You bought dinner.”

“Yeah! To repay you for tutoring!”Wonwoo lifts up his visor and grins. “Guess you’ll have to buy more dinners.”

Junhui pouts. “You’ll have to keep tutoring me then. You said waves and optics were _hard_ and that’s next.”

“Obviously. You’ll fail without me, jellohead.” Wonwoo pauses. Then, he reaches up with one hand and ruffles Junhui’s hair. “You’ve worked hard though.”

Junhui feels tiny. _Tiny_. Even though Wonwoo’s leaning against his bike and shorter than Junhui when he’s bent over, he feels like a child. Except, he doesn’t think little kids have their heart beat this fast when they get their heads patted. “I still don’t get why you helped.”

Wonwoo shrugs casually. “It’s not like it’s a huge burden on me or anything. I say something for a few minutes and then play games or read while you work on some problems. I’d be doing something similar if I were at home anyway.”

“Yeah, but…”

“And I felt bad,” Wonwoo says awkwardly. He slips his hands into the pockets of his green windbreaker, the one he always seems to be wearing, and looks down at the pavement. “I know most of the people who hang out at the café, we’re all regulars. And I guess I can be a bit mean to all my friends, but you took it really badly and I guess we weren’t friends yet.”

“Yet. But we’re friends now?”

“Tutor and tutee?” Wonwoo suggests.

Junhui shakes his head quickly. “Friends,” he says, voice quiet but firm.

“Guess that means you’re letting me be mean to you again, huh?”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

The exam marks come back on Monday, and Junhui’s managed a 73. He’ll take the C given that it’s almost thirty percent higher than his first quiz grade. To celebrate, he, Hansol, Xiaoxiao and Jieqiong head out to a dessert café after classes and Kwannie doesn’t even narrow his eyes at all the milk tea Junhui drinks while they work on the waffles and ice cream. The improvement took effort, and he deserves the sugar today, even if it’s supposedly bad for him.

Around sunset they split ways, Hansol heading home, the girls to a karaoke party that Junhui is invited to but turns down, instead jogging over to the shrine to find Minghao so they can get back to the apartment together. Junhui has a couple reasons for it – one that it’s nice to spend time with Haohao, but more importantly so he can keep an eye on him and make sure he eats dinner before heading to bed.

They sit around the stir-fried vegetables and pork spare ribs on the dinner table, easy dishes that are done by the time the rice cooker dings, the starchy steam filling the kitchen and mixing with the aroma of soy sauce and sesame oil. Neither Junhui or Minghao are great cooks but they make do and even if the food is terrible, Minghao doesn’t skip meals. He just doesn’t. But Junhui can’t figure out what’s going on. Minghao isn’t sick, not doing anything weird, just always tired, and sleeping doesn’t seem to help. Junhui has half a mind to call his parents, but that would only worry them and probably not be actually useful.

“You got your test back today, right?” Minghao prompts, interrupting Junhui’s thoughts.

“Oh, yeah!” Junhui says brightly, putting down his chopsticks to make finger guns proudly. “73.”

“I’m glad you’re proud of that,” Minghao says, snarky but clearly amused. “Aren’t you glad you got a tutor now?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Junhui says, thinking about Saturday night, when Wonwoo had ruffled his hair and told him he’d done well.

Minghao mutters something under his breath, cueing Junhui to remember, “Right! Thank you for pushing me to do that…” Junhui laughs lightly. “I really did know I _should_ but things kept happening and I kept making excuses…”

“Nevermind that,” Minghao says tiredly, “anyway, I had something else I wanted to ask.”

“Sure. You’re not going to tell me about your day though?”

Minghao rolls his eyes. “Do I even need to? Can you and Mingyu coordinate so not both your cats are always tailing me at all times? If you really have to do it, can’t they alternate shifts or something. Otherwise I get double the nagging when they report back and have to repeat the same ‘I’m fine’ conversation to both you.”

“You noticed?” Junhui asks sheepishly.

“I’m not incompetent. If I couldn’t tell I was being followed I’d be useless. Anyway, just one is enough,” Minghao says tightly. In his own way, that’s like Minghao letting them care about him. It’s not that Minghao is bad with emotions. In fact, he’s way better about articulating his thoughts and feelings than Junhui is. But he’s also someone who likes to be strong. Minghao is remarkably like the fabled god Mars like that, fiery passion, hot-blooded youth, quick to retaliate. He’s more someone who takes care of others than someone who’s taken care of.

“And Junhui?”

“Yeah?”

“You know if you hide things from me I always figure it out eventually, right?”

 

☽ ☽ ☽

 

By Thursday afternoon, Junhui has successfully survived his first crunch period. The astronomy exam over and three essays submitted, he practically skips to the internet café with Hansol in tow, ready to grind levels at least until they got hungry.

Someone other than Soonyoung is manning the counter today, but as suggested, Wonwoo is there as if he never leaves.

“Hey, Wonwoo! I passed the astronomy midterm!” Junhui says, happily waving while Hansol lingers behind.

“I heard,” Wonwoo says, chuckling but not looking up from his screen. “Hold on a minute, jellohead, we’re almost done here.”

“Oh…yeah…” Junhui suddenly remembers immediately texting Wonwoo ‘ _73!!!!!!!! ヽ(^O^)ノ_ ’ after getting their scores back, and bounces awkwardly on his heels. He looks back at Hansol who’s glaring at the side of Wonwoo’s head and has to hurriedly placate him, whispering that the nickname is fine with him now while Hansol continues to look unimpressed.

“I have to go now,” someone says, drawing their attention.

“Already, Seungcheol-hyung?” “Sorry Wonwoo, something came up.”

When Wonwoo’s friend stands up, Junhui gasps and points. “Ah! It was you! You’re the new part-timer at the shrine right?”

Seungcheol looks up at Junhui and frowns.

“I’m friends with Minghao,” Junhui explains.

“Ah. I’d stay to chat but I have to get going now, sorry,” Seungcheol says roughly, pushing past them for the exit.

“He said he was free all day,” Wonwoo says, lips drawn downward. He swivels in his chair to face them. “Anyway, nice job jellohead. Next unit we won’t have to catch up on weeks of material so I think your grade can still improve.”

“Even though it’s harder? Actually, wait, I did lose eight points overthinking a question so I probably can do better.”Wonwoo’s smile is smug and oozes self-confidence. “You have me, don’t you? And haven’t I said something about your overthinking problem?”

“You’re not going to be mean to Junhui-hyung again are you?” Hansol interrupts, face distrustful.

Wonwoo looks behind Junhui and meets Hansol’s eyes. His gaze softens slightly. “I might be a little bit…but I won’t hurt him.”

Hansol seems satisfied enough with that answer, and they take over the workstation Seungcheol had emptied along with the empty one just adjacent.

Even though Junhui’s playing PvP with Hansol, the entire time he feels keenly aware of Wonwoo’s presence on the other side of him, noticing when Wonwoo slams his mouse against the table in frustration, when Wonwoo mutters to himself, whether because of something good or bad. It’s distracting, and at one point he definitely gets himself killed because of it, but Hansol doesn’t seem to notice, and Junhui figures it’s kind of retribution for that time he got Wonwoo killed.

They pause for a stretch break, Junhui getting up to grab a drink, when Junhui gets a call.

“It’s Minghao,” Mingyu says, voice panicked and loud. “Junhui-hyung, he just…I don’t…”

Every day Junhui is freaking out. He can feel Kwannie pawing at him from inside his jacket, probably worried because of how tense every muscle in Junhui’s body has become. But there’s also a team leader side to him and that part goes into hyperdrive. “Okay, slowly, tell me one thing at a time and try to go in order if you can. Deep breaths.”

After some loud gasping of air, Mingyu manages, “He’s in the hospital. I’m on my way. Wait, that’s not the beginning. Okay. He was supposed to come over for dinner. But he never showed up and when I called he didn’t answer. So I called the shrine and he wasn’t there and they said he’d already left. And then, well, I don’t know the details but apparently he fainted and they’ve stabilized him now. The hospital called me because they found so many missed calls on his phone and I’m almost there now.”

“I’ll head over too,” Junhui says, “Hansol’s with me, we’ll go together.”

“Wait! Hyung, don’t—I mean you can go see him but I thought about it in the car and I think someone should check out the tennis courts. Near the shrine, you know the ones I’m talking about? They said whoever found him called the ambulance there and I don’t think there’s going to be a police investigation so one of us should go check before the scene is too tampered with.”

It’s a good point. “But—”

“—I can take care of Haohao, hyung, and I think this might be important.”

“Okay, you’re right, and you’re closer to the hospital and we’re closer to the shrine anyway. Can you text me visiting hours? Hansol and I will head over with food for everyone if there’s enough time.”

“Deal. I’ll keep you posted, and you should message with any updates too.”

Junhui doesn’t remember bidding Wonwoo farewell. All he does is rush back to Hansol, grab his bag, and hauls the two of them out the door, making for the tennis courts at a near-sprint. He fills Hansol and his cat in on the details while they’re running, between his panting for air, and tries to piece a picture together. The tennis courts are on the way from the shrine to the subway station, which would explain the location if Minghao was headed to Mingyu’s. But the reason for fainting remains unclear, except that Minghao has been bone tired for weeks now.

With the shrine being a bit in a forest, not many people visit the area after the visiting hours for the day are over, and the tennis courts in question are so rundown they’re rarely used anyway. They transform into their sailor scout forms behind a lonely statue at the edge of the shrine property, just in case there’s some evil afoot.

When they approach, Kwannie darts forward ahead of them, tail sticking out stiffly. “There’s something weird here,” he pronounces, “in the air. I don’t sense anything physical but still…”

Junhui’s very human hair is standing on end too, and he doesn’t need a cat’s intuition to feel the heaviness, like someone had made the air here thicker, its weight pressing down on Junhui’s head. Some kind of dark energy, probably, although Hansol doesn’t say anything concrete even though he’s already sitting down to do research. Science nerds.

“Has it always been here?” Junhui questions. “A bunch of us can sometimes pass by this place once in a while. Mars more often—wait. Mars more often. Because he has to come through here if he’s going to see Venus. What if this is what’s been making him so tired?”  
Hansol shakes his head. “That doesn’t make sense. First of all, he’s not dense. He would have noticed something like this. Second of all, it’s not like he’d walk inside the fence, right? And none of us can feel anything tangible anchored here. It’s just this aura…so I think it’s something lingering in the air.”

“Decided not to take solo missions anymore, Sailor Moon?”

Three heads swivel to the new presence, and Tuxedo Mask takes two steps closer.

“Tuxedo Mask? Why are you here?”

“I could ask you the same.”

Junhui frowns. “We sensed something…”

“And I sensed you were in danger. But there’s nothing here,” Tuxedo Mask points out. “I’ve scoured the perimeter as well. Nothing.”

Hansol nods. “But you feel it, right? Like there’s something wrong even though there’s no explanation for it?”

“Like walking into a fog,” Tuxedo Mask confirms. It’s hard to read his expression when they can’t see his eyes, but his mouth is firm. “That’s why I sensed you were in danger.”

“There’s something happening,” Junhui says, looking at Hansol because it’s easier not to think about the last time he’d seen Tuxedo Mask this way, easier not to remember the feeling of being carried, of hands on his back, the smoothness of his voice and the way it made butterfly wings flutter in Junhui’s stomach. “We’re having to fight more battles than we used to, and there’s all this weird dark energy in strange places. After today…wait. You sensed we were in danger but how come you didn’t notice when Sailor Mars was?”

“Sailor Mars was in danger?”

“He wasn’t transformed at the time,” Hansol points out.

Tuxedo Mask looks at Junhui, and waits until Junhui’s looking at him before saying, “I’m not attuned to all of you. Only to Moon.”

“That’s not very useful,” Junhui says quickly. “Anyway we wanted to contact you earlier and couldn’t either. I can’t just get myself punched for us to talk to you.”Tuxedo Mask bows his head. “What would you have me do?”

“Well, we need to talk with the others. A group meeting.”

“On Sunday night then. Here.”

“Hey wait, we don’t know if the others are free—”

But then Tuxedo Mask leaps up onto the roof of the locker building and out of sight.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to:  
> 1\. [elephant emoji] for telling me not to overdo it (i think i probably still overdid it)  
> 2\. [candy emoji] for agreeing to svt (little) bang with me  
> 3\. [hamster emoji] for telling me no matter how bad it is she'd read anything i write  
> 4\. [mango emoji] for without you, there'd be no way  
> 5\. the mods for their patience  
> 6\. the five of you who offered to read this over for me despite not knowing anything about svt  
> 7\. [deer emoji] for writing me multiple sailor moon au birthday fics years ago  
> 8\. and you, dear reader. this was an effort of 'shit i'm past the deadline' more than it was an effort of craftmanship or quality, but nevertheless it was still a labour of love, and i'd appreciate if you're gentle with this one, i'm begging you, please go easy on me, just this once.


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